


On Their Hands A Dead Star

by missworld666



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/F, F/M, Humanstuck, M/M, Rockstar AU, basically its the, but i decided to give you anyways, i have only a loose plan for this we'll see what happens, nobody wanted or needed, probably more characters and ships, prose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 14:06:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7535743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missworld666/pseuds/missworld666
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TG: lmao</p><p>TG: THE BITCH IS BACK!!</p><p>( Or: Roxy Lalonde, undead music legend, wants Dave Strider to make things right. And by that, she means arrest the fuck out of the asshole who murdered her forty years ago. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Their Hands A Dead Star

_“Why’d you think they do that, Janey?”_

_“Do what?”_

_“Just lock up. Like…like they don’t know what to do. Even though the car’s right there.”_

_“They’re animals. They get scared easily.” “But why don’t they run?”_

_“Maybe they know something we don’t.”_

\- - -

Your name is ROXY LALONDE, and in just under three hours, you are going to be DEAD.

(You don’t know this yet.)

Even though people say you’re a shoe-in for the Tragic Rock Stars Club™, you think that’s FAIRLY UNFOUNDED! Maybe you like to DIP INTO THE SAUCE now and then, but that’s just ‘cause you NEED IDEAS, PEOPLE, if you wanna continue to be the VOICE OF A GENERATION. Plus, your punk rock street cred is totes ridic, and you can HUNT FOR THAT POONTANG like nobody’s business.

You also enjoy GAY (in the classical and modern sense) MAGICAL MEN and HEADBANGING. You like to combine these two interests using THE ART OF SONG. Once, you wrote a whole goddamn musical experience based on that concept, which went MULTI-FUCKING-PLATINUM. You don’t like to brag, but pretty much every track on that record was a hit single. You have been told you are LYRICAL GENIUS.

(Secretly, you think you might not be THAT GREAT).

A lot of famous people like you, which you guess makes you famous, too. It’s pretty cool. Like being part of an fancy club that lets you do whatever you want, and they can’t kick you out for drinking too much. DRINKING is another hobby you partake in from time to time.

You are also SHAM MARRIED to a member of your band, Dirk Strider, as part of a bid to hide his HOMOSEXUAL LIAISONS. This is terribly exciting to you. It would be cool if he turned out to be a wizard and you eloped, but sometimes you just have to settle for what you get. Which in this case is a GAY DRUMMER.

But enough of this introductory nonsense! In fact, you should be utterly ashamed for focusing on yourself in times such as these. After all, there has been a death in the family.

This morning, you discovered one of your many beloved cats lying motionless on the kitchen floor, seemingly bereft of life. Expert detective and guitarist ~~and girlfriend~~ Jane Crocker was summoned immediately to investigate, and preformed a through inspection of the victim, one ‘Mr Frigglish’. After an arduous and grueling period of examination, his death was ruled a tragic accident. Apparently, cat’s don’t always land on their feet.

Frigglish was an upstanding member of the household, and you are still reeling from his sudden departure. You are quite sure that (no matter how uninterested they may appear) the rest of the cats are just as shaken as you are. In order to to ascertain his place in the history of catkind, you have decided to honor him in the most metal way possible: lighting his mortal husk ablaze, whilst gently sending his soul across the ~~ocean~~ pool, in search of the great beyond. A proper viking funeral.

Detective Jane was called away on ‘important business’ (which likely means a meeting you should be attending) before Vodka Mutini, Mr Frigglish’s closest friend, was even able finish his touching memorial service, which is a real shame. But if she wants to go sit at a conference table all day and talk about money, then that’s fine. You’re cool with it. Except now you feel less like a viking laying to rest brother in arms, and more like a psychopath burning a cat in a pool.

Still, you must remain. To support Frigglish’s friends and family, who are still raptly listening to Mutini finish his grand eulogy. Mostly, it’s just one long meow, because animals can’t talk. Also, you look dumb holding that shoebox of cat corpse and this is stupid and why don’t you go inside and finish that whiskey from the wake that’s still mostly there because Jane doesn’t like to drink? Yeah, that’s a good idea.

By the time you return two hours later (having finished much more than just the whiskey), Mr Frigglish’s corpse is being eaten by his second-cousin, and his mother-in-law is gnawing the coffin. You don’t really notice. You’re much more preoccupied with the way the sunlight melts into the perfectly blue water. Almost, you think, like a chlorine-flavored birthday cake.

The swimming pool that Frigglish was nearly put to rest in is the crowning feature of your perfectly coiffed lawn. It cost you forty grand, but that’s not a problem. Not anymore. Besides, you’d have spent anything on it. It’s the kind you’ve always dreamed of, ever since you were a scrawny kid growing up in a town where the largest expanse of open water was your bathtub. You had all these plans to roleplay tales of wizarding heroism with the gardener in it (who already thought you were crazy- but never said no). Pretend that maybe the diving board was…something wizard-like. You hadn’t gotten it all squared up. It was still fun, though. Until Dirk pointed out that forty grand was more than your gardener makes in two years, and how fucked up is that? You replied that yeah, it was kind of fucked up. Then you gave Mr Harley a raise and told him not to worry about trimming the hedges by the pool.

(That night was the first time you drank enough to black out).

Sometimes, it feels like people are trying to stop you from having a good time. You know you’re funny. You know you’re attractive. You know you’re famous. You know that people will call whatever you scream into a mic art. You also know that none of that has ever stopped you from understanding people. You know that none of it makes you better than the roadies or fans or even the girls who laughed at your clothes in high school. But the question still lingers in your mind: if you’re all of these things, why should you feel bad spending the money? ~~Why does everyone frown when you have a drink?~~

(You’re not an unhappy person. You just get the feeling you’re supposed to be).

You used to look at tabloids and wonder who this train wreck of a person was, until your eyes wandered to the name at the top of the articles. Then you laughed, because what a great story this is going to be! ‘Look,’ you’d say to all of them, to Dirk and Jake and Jane, holding up the magazine. ‘Apparently, I’m like, totes giving that drummer- y’know, the fishy-smelling one? Well, he does. Like a shitty mermaid. Anyways, I really strummed his guitar last time we were in London, apparently’ .You’d wink, wait for them to crack a smile. But they never laughed, just sat there. Jake would mutter something about how you’ve been doing more than just strumming his guitar, and Jane’d look like you sucker-punched her in the gut. Dirk never seemed hurt, but he would tell you that the ‘pun doesn’t really work’.

You’d go home and try to remember what you did last time you were in London.

These days, you try to avoid magazines. It’s not fun, glimpsing bits and pieces of this alternate Roxy.

~~ROXY LALONDE BARES ALL ON STAGE ROXY LALONDE MARRIAGE DISINTEGRATING ROXY LALONDE OFF HER ROCKER ROXY LALONDE BREAKDOWN RUMORS ROXY LALONDE ROXY LALONDE ROXY LALONDE~~

The marriage ones are the only jokes that work. You and Dirk shacked up because the press was starting to catch on to the type of groupie he brought back to his hotel room (which was none- he’s more into roadies with tight abs and other, tighter, things that are best left to the imagination). Besides, you and Janey are something, so it works. You think. ~~You hope.~~ Jake has yet to figure it out, which is probably good. He acts like a grandpa most of the time.

You got engaged to a man you didn’t love. You married him in Vegas and it really was the best day of your life. The both of you must be the shittiest actors in the world, though, because not a week goes by without _The Enquiring Carpacian_ releasing an article about the deplorable state of the Strider-Lalonde marriage. Nobody actually believes that rag, so it’s not a big deal. They manage to transcend the realms of inaccuracy on a near daily basis. A real shitstain on the (kinda) honorable world of journalism.

Jane doesn’t like it. Not the magazines, but the marriage. She says that all publicity is good publicity. She says it doesn’t matter what the producers think, what anyone else thinks. She says, ‘We should tell Jake. Golly, you know what? The fans deserve to know. Everyone does.’ And then the two of you plan out your lives together, like she isn’t the guitarist for the best band in the world, and you aren’t the voice of a generation who can’t quit, not now.

(Where’s your Porsche, shattered along the freeway? Where’s your tragic young death?)

You know it hurts her, when you pull stupid stunts and screw even stupider people. She gets this weird face, ‘cause she’s trying to act like it’s okay. You aren’t more than ‘just a thing’. She laughs at all your jokes about dick and tit size, pretends she does exactly the same during nights you spend with other people. Even when you know she sleeps with you, and only you.

(You don’t have many regrets. Making her cry is one of them).

Fuck, it was about wizards. Wizards. Except that guy on the BBC called it a metaphor for youth and you didn’t correct him. That’s the only reason you’re a genius. Because you wrote a weird-ass album about gay wizard sex and everybody thought it was a metaphor for the Korean War or Civil Rights or some other bullshit.

Here’s an idea for your next hit single: Fuck Fuck Fuckity Fuck, Oh Shit We Really Fucked Up Our Lives, Didn’t We?

\- - -

Your name is Roxy Lalonde, and in precisely ten minutes, you are going to be dead.

The police will detail in their report how you drunkenly snagged your scarf on an (unknown) object. How, whilst trying to free yourself, you smashed your head on the concrete so hard they had to sandblast the blood off. How even though the coroner found water in your lungs, you died there. On the ground.

The doctor’s will say it happened quickly. Their words will be comforting to a number of people.

The tabloid’s will report that a pretty blonde corpse with a BAC level that was off the charts just got extradited from Roxy Lalonde’s swimming pool. It was, they will say, ‘her own fault’.

Mr Harley will steal your scarf and wallet. He will say that it’s what you would’ve wanted.

All of them, with the exception of the last, will be wrong.

What really happens is this:

You spend a little too much time tipsily staring at your own reflection in the water. You’ve never been narcissistic, so it seems kind of cruel that the one time you are, you die. But that’s just how the world works, and all that matters is you don’t see the faint glimmer of a person floating above your left shoulder, not until they have their hands on your scarf and they won’t stop pulling. At first you think it’s Jane, back to play games with you. But the noose just gets tighter. As you reach your hands up to pull at the fabric, you can’t help but remember stories of crazed fans and celebrity stalkers. You can’t help but think dying like this isn’t fair.

(A fact: you would have been able to fight had you not been drunk. A fact: you would been able to run had you not been drunk. A fact: you would have survived had you not been drunk.)

You never believed that thing they do in books, where when somebody’s dying, their life flashes before their eyes. Not until now.

_(Your fifth birthday, a pink cake. Your twelfth birthday, buying a record player. Your fifteenth birthday, guitar lessons. Your eighteenth birthday, ‘We should just fucking…start a band’. Your twentieth birthday, Jane, hands on your thighs. Your twenty-first birthday, writing. Your twenty-second birthday, champagne, celebrities, money money money. Your twenty-fourth birthday, second album, music legend. Your twenty-fifth birthday, same as the twenty-first, but boring. Your twenty-sixth birthday, not yet here.)_

Shadows curl around the edges of your vision, and somewhere in the distance, there is a horrible crunch. The pressure eases off your windpipe, but there is a deep and primal piece of you saying that something is very wrong. The world spins. The pavement glitters in the humidity. The blood glitters on the pavement. Chlorine hangs heavy in the air. A voice breaks the silence.

“You can stop now.”

No response.

“You can stop now!"

Louder this time.

“I mean, it would take a miracle to recover from that.”

A reply.

“Miracles can happen.”

And then, the last words you hear in this life:

“Just don’t smash her head in.”

You don’t fight it when the sweet scent of chlorine rushes up your nose. Burns your eyes and brain and mouth. It’s cooler now, quieter. You know you are going to die. You can’t do anything about it.

The last thing you feel are his hands on your shoulders. Holding you down.

The last thing you see is a face you know, his wicked grin haloed by crimson.

And you finally understand why deer freeze in headlights.

\- - -

_“Like what?”_

_“Maybe they’re thinking about the people they love.”_

_“’Cause they know they’re done for?”_

_“Yeah, I guess.”_

_“Now I’m sad. Thinking about those poor squashed deeries.”_

_“Roxy?”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“Please don’t die. ”_

_“Why would I do that?”_

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't read homestuck or written fanfiction for...lets just say a really long time. So I'm not sure where the inspiration for this came from. I guess that's my poor excuse for how terribly ooc everything is, but I hope & pray that you believe me when I tell you it will get better.
> 
> Anyways!! I'm actually excited about this & really hope it works out, so if you get this far, maybe give me a lil positive feedback? Even the tiniest of kudos makes me shed tears of joy. 
> 
> PS The title for this came from 'Paint A Vulgar Picture' by The Smiths. So clap if you want a Morissey cameo.
> 
> EDIT: Since I haven't used AO3 in forever, I'm having some trouble making this work look like it has multiple chapters (i.e. It says 1/1, but I want it to say 1/?, since this is not a oneshot). Can anybody help me with this? Thanks!!


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